


Christian

by 1000lux



Series: Does your journey still continue? [1]
Category: Vikings (TV)
Genre: Introspection, Ivar's perspective, M/M, Pre-Slash, but well it's Ivar, set at some random point in the future after s05e06, slightly obsessive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-02-26 10:40:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13233960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1000lux/pseuds/1000lux
Summary: Ivar had never believed Christian priests could be like that. Screaming their prayers into the faces of their enemies like curses or threats. Fighting to honor their god, just like they were.Can be read as a standalone.





	Christian

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own rights to either the series or it's characters.
> 
> After having been writing on a giant Ragnar/Athelstan fic for years now, I never would have thought, that this would be the first story I would post to the Vikings fandom...
> 
> I'm just so incredibly psyched by the Ivar-Heahmund dynamic! It would have been awesome as it is, but in juxtaposition to Ragnar and Athelstan's relationship it is just brilliant.

Ivar saw how uncomfortable Heahmund was among the people of Kattegat. How much it irked him that many saw him as their battle comrade after the last fight.

But Ivar liked him all the more for it. He knew that man. A man who'd refused to die. A man who was too proud to take another man insult him to his face. Like any man, who was truly a man, would. Despite all the Christian talk about humility. Ivar knew enough about the Christian God, to know that. Had learned about it. A lot he had read between the lines from all the abuse Floki had talked through the years. Still as sore about the Christian priest his father had loved, long after the man himself had been in the ground. Some Ivar had learned in England. Some from his father, just like the language. It was important to know. To know how to exploit the weaknesses of others. And this Christian faith was a weakness. But he found none of that in the priest he'd acquired. None of the things he'd been told. There was none of all the weakness he'd seen in Wessex or Northumbria. Men in dresses who ran from a sword and cowered. He didn't wear his hair like them. He didn't dress like them. He bore arms. Fought. Carrying the sign of his God on his weapons. Riding into battle like Thor or Odin himself. Ivar had never believed Christian priests could be like that. Screaming their prayers into the faces of their enemies like curses or threats. Fighting to honor their god, just like they were. Ivar had never seen anything like it. Had never seen anything so beautiful. Hadn't dared to think to find anything so perfect here in this country of weakness. And in that moment when he'd seen him there blood-soaked, surrounded, screaming, undefeated. He'd wanted to be him. Because he unlike Ivar would be able to die in battle. And no matter his Christian God, this man would sit in Valhalla. No way would Odin leave this warrior to the Christian god. And Ivar hadn't wanted it to end yet. So he couldn't let him die yet. How did the Christian priests say? Live vicariously through someone else.

*

"Ivar, why do you not kill the Christian?" Floki asked, like it didn't really matter to him, but Ivar could tell. Could tell how very much his uncle wanted the man dead.

"Because he's a great warrior, Floki." Ivar explained, smiling. "And it is his fate to die in battle and no other way. It would offend the gods did I make it otherwise. And I have decided he will die fighting for me." Yes, Ivar had decided he wanted this man's loyalty. And he was going to get it. Only that would be enough.

*

Ivar saw Floki circling Heahmund in the streets. Eying him with distaste. Floki started muttering the words of the gods, making the signs of the runes.

Heahmund only gave him an equally disgusted stare, then he dropped to his knees in the middle of the street, raised his hands in prayer, and started to loudly recite the words of his god, that Ivar had heard often enough by now, for all to hear.

Yes, Ivar thought with contentment. His priest wouldn't just let himself get slain by Floki, like the priest Athelstan had. See, father, my Christian is already superior to yours.

*

Blood dripped from his sword and ran down the lines of his shield, where the cross was etched into the wood, that the priest still fought with. A single red cross proud and unrepentant, among all the northmen. He looked like he'd looked that day when he'd captured him. Face splattered with blood. Bringing death, while sneering it in the face at the same time. Eyes looking rapt, like it was something spiritual, something holy he was doing here. He wiped the blade of his sword with an almost tender gesture, then kissed the cross around his neck, leaving traces of blood on it.

Ivar beckoned Heahmund towards him. Where he was sitting on the back of an overturned cart. From which he'd watched the battle. 

"Closer still." he prompted again, eyes brimming with amusement.

He grabbed Heahmund by the back of his hair and pulled him into a hard kiss, tasting the blood on the other's face, on his lips, in his mouth.

Heahmund pulled away, looking at him appalled.

"I just wanted to taste death on you." Ivar told him simply, smiling through bloody teeth. Reluctantly he reliquished his grasp of Heahmund's neck.

*

When he'd kissed him, Ivar had felt more. More of everything. Things he hadn't been able to feel with Margrete. Things he'd thought himself incapable of. More than the frenzy of battle. More than the ecstasy of victory. More than the warm arousal of having defeated a man who'd deemed himself better than him, or any other good feeling Ivar knew. And so he needed more.

The gods had sent him the priest to give him all he thought he couldn't have. To complete him. To be all he couldn't be. He needed that man by his side. In his confidence. He needed his loyalty, his respect. With him he could be all he ever wanted to be. He was the part of him he'd been cheated of at birth. And Ivar wanted him like he'd never wanted anything before. To be him. To have him. To possess him. To call every piece of him his own. His body. His mind. Even that immortal soul the Christians always talked about. Even that would be Ivar's for all eternity.  
That man belonged to him. Had belonged to him since Ivar had first seen him. Even though they hadn't known it yet. Had sealed the deal when he'd pointed his sword at Ivar, acknowledging him as an opponent worth killing, even as he'd sat there in the mudd. Not scared of him like the others who thought of him as some bad omen, something dark, disturbing and unnatural, and only shot their arrows at him from afar. No, he just saw him for the danger he posed, looked at him eye to eye even while he was standing, and came in for the kill personally. The man, who'd had Ivar's whole and healthy brothers beaten like dogs, had seen him, the cripple, and recognized him as the leader behind all this, as someone too dangerous to be left alive, as someone who deserved his full attention. And alone for that Ivar had had to return the favor, when he'd given him his horse. But it was so much more than that now. The man who disregarded his disability so much that he could show him the contempt you'd show an equal. The first person in this war to understand him, to think like him. Ivar had seen from his spot on the tower, how Heahmund had been suspicious, had tried to talk to the king. The only one to not run headfirst into his trap. And Ivar would have bet all their loot on Heahmund having been the one who had come up with the plan to cut off their supplies. To find a like mind like that and on the other side. But that made it only so much more thrilling. 

*

His father's priest had been his slave when he first came here. Ivar wondered if he should make Heahmund his slave too. He wondered what would win out. His pride or his will to live.

But, no, he wouldn't do that. It would be his pleasure to convince Heahmund that this place was exactly where his god had wanted him to be.


End file.
